faring well

i walked in to the office yesterday to sign a release and clear out my desk. aside from megaman everyone was supportive and friendly or shocked that the company would let me go. the it guy was especially awkward, as his first reaction was "what? they fired you before *me*?!" and then he got all mopey. i only discovered about half an hour ago that they'd fired another one of the team on wednesday, and i've heard that morale is now at an all-time low... which is quite a feat.

i'm still amazed by the colombian developer, who behaved as if his legs had been taken out from under him but who, as i found out later, was the only one who'd already heard. hah! he totally fooled me :P

anyway, they let me keep my phone and they're considering giving me the laptop i was using. pretty cool.

---thursday:

i finally went on that shirt exchange mission: i could have just posted the goods back to them, but for what? to miss out on running around cote vertu looking for the right bus stop on a hot, sunny day? i wasn't in a hurry so it felt like a treasure hunt, and if i had found it quickly i might have missed out on the special mixture of smells caused by a fellow passenger eating macdonald's in a stop that reeks of pee.

it was a great service experience - less than a minute of greeting, swapping and leaving, and i was lucky to get to the bus stop with only a few minutes to spare as the line frequency was pretty low.

i stopped for lunch and coffee on my way to the office and i ended up arriving a little late... but nobody else cared either.

i came home and watched the rest of ufc 157, the first women's fight, and it was a satisfying one. then i watched a bit of the ultimate fighter while resting for training...

only a handful of us at training, so the instructor made it personal; i was short of breath (as i've been the past week) but i still worked really hard. i let out a lot more aggression doing low kicks on the heavy bag than i thought i ever had in me, and i set the bar for 100 solid kicks in 64 seconds (although the others totally blew that away at around 57 seconds average).

...

the gym's "no whining" sign is a problem for me. i like to whine while i work!

---that moment when you turn on the shower and remember you meant to shave first. it happens to me a lot.

---i was still huffing a little when i headed downtown. tilt took me to brewtopia - the music was really good but i wasn't really paying attention. it was a very cool night and we left a lot later than planned... it was raining, and that made for a rather romantic end to the evening ^_^

---friday:

oh, wow. my first day officially unemployed and it was raining when i woke up. well, if the universe wants me to sleep in, who am i to refuse?

i got my laundry done this morning, and i felt stupidly happy about it being unrushed - what a pleasure! i spent some time checking out french courses before finally deciding on one (i registered online, i hope the form worked properly) and while i was doing that chatted to a few people, including my niece who's unhappy living in london :(

---"it's warm in the metro"
i, like everyone i know, can't stand the excessive heat in there. it shouldn't be "warm", it should be "not cold"! that's not the same thing at all.

from heated metro to an unseasonably warm day and into a hot vietnamese / thai restaurant called la saigonaise, thinking that the food had better be good cause it felt like i was in thailand with no air conditioning. fortunately they had a decent vegetarian platter.

on my return to the clinic i was suddenly struck by a more severe shortness of breath than i've been suffering; as i waited for the doctor to see me i half dozed (and snored a few times, ugh) and felt miserable. the doctor checked me out, decided that i don't need to worry about my nose ("just a lesion," she says) and she prescribed me asthma meds and an x-ray if they don't help.

---aside from posting this and getting in a dentist's appointment before my medical insurance runs out, i've had a nothing afternoon. i guess i should pick up the meds and rest a bit before going out to watch the fights tonight. a part of me believes i should get the meds and use them for an awesome training session :P

---americans and their rights - it occurs to me that any american arrested or harassed by police or government officials has every right to call those entities unamerican and unpatriotic. it's like the americans have suddenly fallen into the hands of a terrorist dictatorship... and they don't have the tools to do anything about it.